A view of Signal Hill,
just north of Long Beach, California, in 1930. The "forest"
that you see are oil derricks, all drilled in the 1920's.photo courtesy of the Los
Angeles Public Library

Many people may be surprised to learn that one of Southern
California's chief exports over the last 100 years, besides motion pictures,
has been oil. Like oil reservoirs in Texas, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania,
a hint of what lay beneath the surface could be seen in the many above
ground oil seeps. These seeps had been known by Native Americans for thousands
of years. In 1543, Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo noticed the native people
using the naturally occurring tar, or "pitch", to waterproof their canoes.
These seeps were also responsible for the tar pits of La Brea (Spanish
for "pitch"), which had, over many thousands of years, trapped unsuspecting
animals and their predators looking for an easy meal.

In 1865, only 6 years after "Colonel" Edwin Drake's monumental
discovery in Pennsylvania, California's first productive well was drilled
by the Union Matolle Company in California's Central Valley. This area,
east of San Francisco, became the scene of much of the drilling activity
through the rest of the 1800's. While none of these wells were considered
major strikes, they did provide enough oil for the nearby market of San
Francisco, by far the largest population center in California in the late
1800's.

It came from over there....
But the largest fields lay undiscovered, near the sleepy seaside village
of Los Angeles. The first well to strike oil in Southern California was
drilled in 1892 by Edward L. Doheny, an unsuccessful gold and silver prospector,
and Charles A. Canfield, his old mining partner. According to legend,
Edward L. Doheny was in the downtown area of Los Angeles when he saw a
cart whose wheels were coated in tar. When he asked the man where the
substance had come from, he pointed to the northeast. Doheny and Canfield
examined the area and soon discovered the Los Angeles Field after drilling
to a depth of 140 meters (460 feet) at the corner of Colton Street and
Glendale Boulevard, near present day Dodger Stadium. It was drilled using
the unlikeliest of instruments: a sharpened end of a eucalyptus tree.
Within 2 years of the find, 80 wells were producing oil in the area bounded
by Figueoa, First, Union and Temple Streets. By 1897, the number of wells
increased to 500.

Rise to Fame
Doheny would eventualy become a millionaire, and gain enough renown to
challenge for the Democratic nomination for Vice-President of the United
States in 1920. And although he was cleared of any wrong-doing, he would
later become a central figure in the Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920's
which brought disgrace to the presidency of Warren G. Harding. Not surprisingly,
oil was at the center of the scandal.

The Oil Queen
A local music teacher, Emma Summers, was one of the most successful investors
in the first years of the initial boom, and by 1900, Summers controlled
half the production in the original Los Angeles Field. For obvious reasons,
Summers became known as "California's Petroleum Queen."

The oil boom in the early days attracted some interesting
characters, including prostitutes, gamblers and con-men. The population
of the city of Los Angeles doubled between 1890 and 1900, then tripled
again between 1900 and 1910. Later, wells in the 1930's and 40's were
soundproofed with vinyl-coated glass cloth with one-inch sheet fiberglass
filling to decrease the noise, as the drilling activity began to conflict
with the exploding Los Angeles population. Camouflage was also used, a
technique that was eventually moved to offshore fields as well.

In 1900, the state of California produced 4 million barrels.
In 1910, this had jumped to 77 million barrels. In spite of this increased
production, many of the fields were beginning to see slowdowns in their
production rates in the late 1910's, and California's wondered if their
oil boom was reaching an end. But before that would happen, 3 major fields
were discovered in rapid succession - Huntington Beach (1920), Santa Fe
Springs (1921), and the biggest of them all, the Signal Hill, or Long
Beach, Field in 1921.